The campaign to honour more than 40 soldiers from in and around Uttoxeter who died fighting bravely in the First World War has taken a huge step forward.

In April, we reported on the initiative to add the names to the war memorial in Market Place. They were uncovered by historians Alan and Gillian Talbot, authors of Uttoxeter's Lost Generation 1914-1918, which chronicles the stories of soldiers from the area who fought in the Great War.

JCB agreed to fund three new bronze plaques, on which it is hoped the names will be inscribed in time for the centenary of the 1918 armistice, as part of the project.

Now Uttoxeter Town Council has taken the plan a step forward by formally entering a planning application to East Staffordshire Borough Council.

The council's planning committee will decide whether or not to allow the new plaques to be added at a hearing in the near future.

Speaking in April, JCB chairman Lord Bamford revealed his company's donation had been partly inspired by his own family's part in the war.

Among those whose names are on the memorial is Captain Oswald Bamford, who was a partner in Bamfords Ltd, the agricultural machinery firm that evolved into JCB.

Captain Bamford, a cousin of Lord Bamford's grandfather, gave up his job to fight alongside dozens of his employees. He was killed fighting, along with 14 other Uttoxeter men, at the Battle of Loos on October 13, 1915.

Lord Bamford said: "There would not have been a family in Uttoxeter left untouched by the horrors of the First World War, my own included.

"As the centenary of the armistice approaches, I'm please we are able to help in a small way to immortalise the memory of all those men from the town who died in the war by having their names cast in bronze and installed on the memorial."

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